What are you reading?

[StephenHero]

Just finished Wind Up Bird Chronicle. It was great. Should I bother trying to piece the fragments together for the purpose of understanding the linearity of the story? The plot isn't completely tenable, but I'm wondering if you can infer anything about the underlying mechanism for all the dreams and characters' parallels within their different degrees of reality. I'm still dying to know what was in the spy's envelope.

 

[edinatlanta]

Originally Posted by cross22

Examples please.

The abortion one immediately comes to mind.

 

[GraphicNovelty]

Freakonomics isn't about the conclusions they draw, particularly their abortion-falling-crime-rate example, but that's what's talked about the most. It's about using economic theories to understand situations. People zero in on the "controversial" points and then discredit the whole book because that's what they like to do. If you want to read an interesting book about economics as a useful epistemological methodology with colorful examples, then read it. If you want to play high school debate club (which the authors, unfortunately, love to do on their blog) it probably won't be for you.

 

[sephlod]

Originally Posted by Carraway

Read that a while ago, it was okay. I'm not sold on it being a cult classic though. It's good, just not incredible

 

[Knucklehead]

Just finished "Picture of Dorian Grey." About to start reading "Roots" again. Then I'll probably read something by Trotsky.

 

[Izhitsa]

State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain 1970–1974 by Dominic Sandbrook.

 

[hoit1981]

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø. A Norwegian crime novel based around the character Harry Hole, an alcoholic police detective. Beautifully written and based both in WWII and modern day Oslo.

 

[onion]

Has anyone read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man? I've heard very mixed reviews, so I'm wondering if you guys had any opinions. I'm mainly curious to know if it seems accurate or if it's just a bunch of hot air, like something Alex Jones (an insane conspiracy theorist) would write.

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Originally Posted by onion

Has anyone read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man? I've heard very mixed reviews, so I'm wondering if you guys had any opinions. I'm mainly curious to know if it seems accurate or if it's just a bunch of hot air, like something Alex Jones (an insane conspiracy theorist) would write.

I liked it. Interesting stuff... but I think most of it is fiction.

He talks about the Amazon and there is truth to what he says about the treatment of the Natives.

 

[Jerome]

The Pseudonomicon by Phil Hine.

Apart from that- tons of history books, very much recommended: e.g. Patrick J. Geary: Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovingian World.

 

[Matt]

Originally Posted by edinatlanta

The abortion one immediately comes to mind.
It was widely debated, I don't think I have read a comprehensive argument-quasher though. Plenty of people batted around the sides of it, and lots of people found moral excuses to try and discredit it, and when I read those arguments, I got the impression they were being put forward by people who didn't actually read the book, and as such I am yet to see it be logically and rationally defeated. Indeed I read a revised version where some of the arguments and counter arguments were presented in the final pages, and came across this quote from The New York Times article that spawned it all:

Daniel Hamermesh, a prominent labor economist at the University of Texas, has taught Levitt’s paper “The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime” to his undergraduates. “I’ve gone over this paper in draft, in its printed version, at great length, and for the life of me I can’t see anything wrong with it,” Hamermesh says. “On the other hand, I don’t believe a word of it.”

Still, open to reading further to hear it discredited and would welcome any links to that end. Anyhow, whatever, I enjoyed Freakonomics, liked the way they applied economic thinking and statistical modelling into places where it basically has no business being, and enjoyed the authors' innate curiosity and the way the stories were told. I am now a few chapters into the sequel. When that is done, spb_lady and I will be joint tackling The Brothers Karamazov (her in Russian, me in English).

 

[Homme]

Am 105 pages into Ulysses. Might actually finish it this time!

 

[sunror]

veronica - nicholas christopher

 

[spb_lady]

Originally Posted by Homme

Am 105 pages into Ulysses. Might actually finish it this time!

60 pages was my best result

 

[otc]

Originally Posted by Matt

Anyhow, whatever, I enjoyed Freakonomics, liked the way they applied economic thinking and statistical modelling into places where it basically has no business being, and enjoyed the authors' innate curiosity and the way the stories were told. I am now a few chapters into the sequel.

One thing I enjoyed about the sequel was that I realized I had participated in many of the studies (especially in the section about John List).

My memory is a bit foggy but I know there was one where they talk about Men vs Women on how they perform on SAT-style math questions if they are given incentives to do better...I was in one of the groups that got paid per question answered correctly (and you'd better believe I made some money that day

).
Also have done some ultimatum games. I know that almost everybody does these in school but I remember doing some particularly high stakes ones in the lab that Levitt/List use (I remember because the douche on the other side rejected my offer....I certainly didn't offer him 50% but I didn't lowball him either).